At First Sight
by songsinblue
Summary: In a burning building in St. Petersburg, Hawkeye and the Black Widow cross paths for the first time, and orders are ignored.
1. Chapter 1

The first time they lay eyes on each other, the smoke is stinging and the heat of the fire is beginning to rise. Clint Barton runs through the abandoned office building in St. Petersburg, hot on the tail of five Russian agents. One of whom, presumably the leader, is said to be the infamous Black Widow, Natasha Romanov. The U.S. has been after this gang for quite some time. They're tied up with arms trafficking, kidnappings, you name it.

Agent Barton is young, fresh off a tour in Black Ops, and already renowned for his marksmanship. He's the assassin they send when they want the job done, and the brass really want this one ended. Romanov has been flirting with them for years, since she was a teenager. She's wanted for literal dozens of murders, not to mention other crimes, and Clint's task is to bring her in, dead or alive. He knows, as he creeps down the hallway, an arrow nocked to his bow, that she's got four others with her, all of whom have their own extensive files, all of them deadly, but Romanov is the worst. Pure cunning, and ruthless as they come, they say.

He hears gunshots around the corner. He brings the bow to eye level and darts around, but there's nothing except smoke trailing up through the ducts. He blinks. The first floor of the building is on fire, has been since they made contact, and he's going to have to get out soon. But he isn't finished yet.

Clint kicks in the door, and that's when he sees her. The halo of red hair, the delicate ivory skin, she is unmistakable. She is even more beautiful and terrifying than her file photo. And she's lying on her side on the floor, bleeding profusely and staring right at him. She's been shot three times, very recently. Clint has just enough time to conclude her associates must have turned on her before he realizes she's reaching for a handgun, lying on the floor under the desk next to a scattered set of papers that must be what she was here for. Her jaw is set, and his bow is drawn, and she knows any second now he'll release the arrow into her heart, all but point-blank, and still she struggles to reach the pistol. Blood pools under her and she doesn't take her eyes off him. She is a wounded animal, a wild thing, determined to die with grace and dignity and maybe a good fight, and he can see her sizing him up.

Clint Barton slowly lets the arrow slide back to its resting place and sets down his bow.

Natasha Romanov's fingers curl, at last, around the pistol and she points it at his heart. It costs her, her time and strength are both running out, but she does it. Her finger tightens on the trigger, and now it is Clint who waits for the shot to kill him, and he doesn't care. Anything is better than what he was supposed to have done. He spreads his hands, palms out, and slowly kneels. Meanwhile, her eyes flicker. He remembers from debriefing that the woman known as the Black Widow has been reprogrammed multiple times, been brainwashed into a killing machine, but he could swear that the flat glare of her eyes is shifting with something else, something human.

Maybe it's the fact that she's dying, but the human fights its way out, and Romanov lowers the weapon. "Who are you?" she asks in only faintly accented English.

"My name is Barton," he says. "I'm an American agent. Where are your associates?"

She spits blood. "Fucking cowardly traitors. When they realized you were close they thought to leave me as an offering."

"You let them get away?" he asks, more out of curiosity than anything.

She glares at him. "I didn't… expect my compatriots to… open fire on me. That's usually… up to my enemies." Just then, there is a crash and a roar. The fire is licking up towards them. The floor is hot under Clint's knees, and the smoke is getting worse.

"We have to go," he says. "If I take you with me, do you promise not to kill me?"

Romanov coughs a laugh. There is a dull thud below and they both flinch. There isn't time, so Clint slings his bow over his shoulder and gathers her off the floor. He stuffs the papers in his quiver. At this point, both of their chances of survival are equally tenuous, what's one more risk to take? He carries her down the hall, tries to find the stairs, and fails. He finds a window, and as he looks down, he realizes the whole wing is in flames below them. They are trapped. Romanov winces but says nothing as he sets her down, nocks an arrow and fires it into the wing next to them. It trails a carbon fiber wire, which he snaps into his belt. When he picks her up again, he says, "You'll have to hold on, understand?"

She raises her head and focuses her eyes and nods. He hopes she has the strength, to lose her now would be a slap in the face. He jumps, and she clings to him like her namesake, limbs wrapped around him. He breaks a window, gets them in, and runs down the first set of stairs he can find. The conflagration rages behind them, just on their tails.

When he finally stumbles out of the burning building with the Black Widow in his arms, they are both singed and covered in her blood. She's less than conscious, and for one minute he stands there in the alley in the cold Russian night and has no idea what to do. Then he looks down at her face, her lashes brushing against the front of his Kevlar vest, and remembers the war he saw in her eyes between her orders and the something else.

Four days later, Agent Clint Barton is reading a tiny side note in the New York Times and drinking his coffee black. _A St. Petersburg hospital took in an unidentified female with three gunshot wounds early Friday morning. The woman was not seen to regain consciousness after an operation after which she was listed in stable condition, but instead disappeared from the hospital. A nurse and two security guards were found unconscious in a hall on the same floor, but none could explain what had happened to them. Any information about a woman with red hair, approx. five and a half feet tall, with three wounds to the torso, can be given to St. Petersburg police at this number…_

"She got away," says his handler bitterly. Barton sets down the paper and looks across the break room table.

"Yeah," he says. "She was there, I know it. But she got away."


	2. Chapter 2

A soft breeze attempted to ruffle Agent Barton's hair and the pages of the file open on his lap as he sat on the roof of an office building on the edge of Kyoto. He glanced up, checked his watch, and straightened the papers. He had time before his mark was scheduled to arrive.

Valentin Federov, 28, formerly KGB, current Russian underworld member, and one of the four who escaped Barton in St. Petersburg, turning on their leader, Romanov- the Black Widow- was a handsome man, from the grainy surveillance shots paperclipped in his file. He had long black hair and looked like he spent too much time in the gym. He was known to be a crack shot with a rifle, but had a fondness for machine guns. The charges against him were numerous, but Clint Barton had a bit of a personal problem with the man- he wasn't used to losing marks.

Which was why he had expressly volunteered to go back into the field, less than a week after the mostly failed St. Petersburg operation, and finish the job. The five Russians had split up, but that was fine. He'd follow. Clint flipped to the back page of Federov's file, where photos of the whole villainous team were included. He studied them all again, but as always, lingered on the last. 'Natalya (Natasha) Romanov. Risk: Extremely High.'

Somewhere a clock struck noon. Barton immediately put the file back in his bag and reached for his bow and arrows. The park below was about to fill with citizens on their lunch break, out for a walk or a snack. Somewhere, Federov would emerge from his hiding place and go to seek a contact in the crowd. The contact, suspected to be a businessman-cum-smuggler, was unknown, but that was all right. He'd get the message.

There- across the park, Clint saw him. Federov wore a long coat, keeping his face angled downwards, but his long hair and build gave him away. Now it was just a matter of finding the right angle, the perfect shot, to drop the bastard and disappear. Nocking his arrow, Barton raised the bow and sighted down the deadly tip of its projectile.

Federov moved cautiously, a man on the run. He avoided physical contact with the other people walking, but he was also hurrying, glancing back and forth. Barton shook his head. Federov was giving himself away. He wondered who the contact was. He was ordered not to bother with them, but if he could I.D. the man, it might be worth something later.

A woman in a long black skirt and broad hat bumped directly into the nervous mark. They sprang away from each other and apologized- at least, that's what Clint assumed, from his rooftop perch- and hurried along. Well, Federov resumed hurrying. The woman actually slowed her pace. Barton watched her hips sway as she moved… there wasn't time. He pulled the bow to full draw as Valentin Federov continued behind a tree and out into the open, just below him. He breathed in, ready to exhale and release a perfect, steady, lethal shot- and Federov dropped.

He simply collapsed, like someone had cut his strings. Clint almost shot him then out of surprise, but managed to hold the string. _What?_ He squinted. Valentin Federov foamed slightly at the lips and stopped breathing. He was dead. A moment later, someone noticed, and shook the body, calling out. The next man to crouch down looked for a pulse, and shook his head, confirming what Clint already knew.

Dumbfounded, he looked back and forth- and there she was. The woman in the black skirt. She paused a moment, perfectly timing her glance back to see what the commotion was about. She looked up at the rooftop- right at him, though she couldn't have known- and smiled, pulling off the hat. As she turned to go, waves of bright red hair fell down her back, and she swayed her hips.

Clint Barton closed his mouth and stowed his weapon, slamming the rooftop door behind him. It was her. And she had _stolen _his kill. On purpose, right under his damn nose. He couldn't believe it, and he wasn't sure his boss would either. Furious, he pulled out his phone, and found a new text message icon blinking at him. His thumb hovered over it before opening it.

(RESTRICTED)

Ladies first. You're welcome.

Collapsing against the wall of the office building, he stared at the glowing screen. They'd warned him a thousand times about this woman. "God help me," muttered Barton, searching the crowds for a face he knew he wouldn't find. "She has my number."


	3. Chapter 3

"A heart attack." Agent Clint Barton's handler gives him a wide eyed look.

Barton shrugs. "You saw the pictures. He just keeled over. Maybe he got scared. Maybe he ate some bad fugu, how the hell should I know?"

The handler sighs. "As long as he's dead."

The agent smirks. "Oh, he's _definitely_ dead." The man in the suit slaps the characteristic navy blue folder on the table in front of the archer. Barton scoops it up almost eagerly and flips it open. Semyon Borcha.

"Well, you're not done yet. There are four more from the St. Petersburg ring. The director wants them all. Especially Romanov. Keep an eye out for her, Barton. She might still be in contact with them. If she catches onto you, you're a dead man. Likewise, if you come back with any sort of information on her- better yet, with her body- you're a legend."

Clint says nothing and does his best not to look at his phone. Two weeks ago, the Black Widow had beaten him to the kill. He's seen her in action, and yet he's still alive. The answer to that question is one that turns itself over and over in his head every night before he can fall asleep. But he knows better than to underestimate her. He takes the file of the next one of her former associates, packs his bow and boards a plane.

London is gray and stern, as always in Clint's eyes. He pulls up the zipper of his windbreaker and catches a cab to an out of the way motel. There he settles in to review the file. Borcha is small, close cropped hair and wide-set, malicious eyes in the mug shot. He is an assassin, linked to the murders of two diplomats and at least four Russian mobsters. His weapon of choice is a pair of knives. Since the St. Petersburg fire, he'd been making his way across Europe. Intel suggested he had family here, and perhaps some sort of business in which he can take on a new identity.

It takes Clint two days to find and track Borcha. Assassins stalking assassins is an even more dangerous game than usual, and he knows he has to get a clear shot on Borcha before the Russian knows he's there. It's a waiting game, but Clint is patient. He finds his target's brother running a shady but popular nightclub. Clint sits down and orders two shots of whiskey, watches the women eye him from across the room and gyrate on the dance floor, and listens. At one in the morning, Borcha slips in the back door, and his brother comes to meet him. "Thought you were employed in the Motherland," mutters the second man.

"Not anymore, the job fell through. I need to lay low for a little while," Semyon Borcha replies.

"Come back tomorrow night," says his brother. "I know some people." The two shake hands. Clint smiles, finishes his drinks, and leaves the way Borcha came in- through the back door. He steps out into a dark alley, and looks up. The rooftops aren't much, but there are a few nice fire escapes tracing the brick buildings. He can work with that.

The next night, Clint settles into a different seat, tucking his sunglasses into his shirt pocket. He buys a single cold beer to nurse for the next few hours, but it turns out he doesn't have long to wait. Tonight Borcha is sitting close to the stage, drink in hand, in the company of three other men. One of them seems to be doing all the talking; the other two are probably bodyguards. Making a mental note of their faces- London's criminal class at its finest- he tries to read their lips in the strobe lights, but it's difficult. After a while, though, their attention drifts on stage, where a few drunk girls have climbed up to dance. Their friends giggle and cheer from the crowd, and the men catcall.

There's a brunette in a tight black skirt and sky-high heels swaying center stage, and an aggressive girl in a sheer white dress, moving with the pounding bass, parading for potential one night stands. Barton watches expressionlessly until he sees what's caught Borcha's attention. His rat-like gaze is fixed on another woman. She's blonde and wearing a violet silk dress, halter neckline revealing just enough to make you sweat. Her hair is long and in her face, but she's not sloppy like the others. Actually, she's very graceful in gold stilettoes. Barton and Borcha watch her dancing, both assassins forgetting their plans for the night temporarily.

It doesn't last more than an hour, during which the girl in the purple dress flirts with the whole room, but after a quick (glaring) exchange between Borcha and his business partner, he buys her a drink, while the other man pursues the brunette. Clint decides he can't begrudge the man a little hope for the evening, though it will be his last. He gets up and walks out as quietly as before.

It's cold and dark, but Clint just pulls on his fingerless gloves and climbs the fire escape to where his bow and arrows are hidden to wait like the seasoned sniper he is. Something seems off, but he doesn't put his finger on it until his phone hums in his pocket. He snatches it from his pocket, hoping and horrified together.

(RESTRICTED)

I'm working. Stay out of my way.

He stares at the screen. Could it be a wrong number? But it all fits together. The girl whose blonde hair had been obscuring his view of her face all night, who was by all rights hot as hell and had been seducing Borcha all night. It was her. It had to be. Clint curses himself. Hawkeye? He hadn't even seen what was right in front of him.

Below him, the door into the alleyway opens. Semyon Borcha steps down, blinking. He looks a little drunk. And the Black Widow is on his arm, that dress skimming her curves. He can see her face now, and it's her- the photograph he's spent so long memorizing in her file. The three from the bar follow along with two more girls. Romanov says, "No, baby, you told me you parked your car this way," and her English accent is so convincing he shakes his head. He pulls the bow to full draw, trying to decide who to take out first- both Borcha and Romanov are well within range.

He doesn't get the chance to decide. One of the bodyguards makes the mistake of trying to slip an arm around her while Borcha peers around in confusion, and Romanov reacts like her namesake, suddenly and violently twisting his arm and flipping him hard onto his back in the gutter. The other two girls scream and Romanov says, "Run," before the second bodyguard turns on her. She blocks his punches and lands a kick in his ribs, sending him stumbling back into Borcha's contact. She ducks the bodyguard, a small black device suddenly in her hand, and plants it in the contact's neck. He convulses and drops silently. The girls stumble in their heels out of the alley and disappear. The Black Widow feints with the last goon for another moment before he grabs her. She kicks off his foot and in one quick motion slings her legs around his neck. Clint can hear the man's neck snap from his perch.

Borcha thinks he's made his escape. He's lurking in the shadows, edging towards the mouth of the alley and safety. The look of fear on his face as Romanov appears in front of him is almost comical. "Natalya," he gasps. "It's you."

"Semyon," she replies coolly. "You betrayed me."

"Raisa," he stammered. "It was her idea. You were supposed to be dead!" The smile that the Black Widow gives him is chilling.

"I know it was Raisa's idea," she purrs. "But you all pulled the trigger, didn't you? Tell me, Semyon, did you really think I wouldn't be back to put you in your grave? I can't have traitors escaping my web."

In answer Borcha pulls himself together, the cold light coming back into his eyes. He shakes his hands, and twin knives appear in his palms. Romanov springs backwards just in time to avoid being skewered. Barton knows he should take the shot- either one of them, both of them, something- but instead he watches. He's never seen anything quite like the Black Widow at work, and it's a little unsettling to think how close he's been to her. Borcha, however, is armed and fighting for his life.

The two knives flicker viciously through the air, but somehow they never land. Romanov spins, landing a punch or two here and then kicking the knife from Borcha's left hand. He hisses and growls, "Have you turned your coat again, Natalya? We could start over, you know-"

In answer she whips the lid of a trash can at him, and while he ducks, slips a pistol from a holster on her thigh. "I am starting over," she says, finger on the trigger. "Tell Valentin hello when you see him in hell." She smiles… and Clint releases the arrow.

It pierces down through his target's neck and through the ribs on the opposite side, skewering the heart. Natalya Romanov's head snaps up and fixes him with a glare. He's already got another arrow nocked as she levels her firearm at him instead, Borcha's body at her feet. "You," she snorts. "What the hell was that? He was _mine_."

"We gotta stop meeting like this," Clint breathes. "Don't shoot me, okay?" He waits a moment, and when she doesn't, he slings his bow back over his shoulder and flips over the railing of the fire escape, landing lightly in the alley below.

Romanov allows the ghost of a smile to touch her face and lowers the gun, but she doesn't put the safety back on. "I'm warning you, Agent Barton. They're mine."

"Not if I get there first," he says. "I've got my orders."

"Am I one of those orders?" she asks archly. Clint looks at his feet and leans against the cold brick wall. How is she not shivering in that little dress? The memory of her, small and light in his arms as flames licked around them, is burned into the back of his mind.

"Am I one of yours?" he says instead.

She makes an expression of distaste. "I'm not under orders right now. This is personal."

Clint shrugs. Then he says, "Listen, can I buy you a drink?"

"He bought me a drink," she says, pointing one toe at Borcha's corpse. "It didn't end well for him."

"Why didn't he recognize you?" Clint asks, suddenly curious.

"Because I slipped a drug in _his_ drink. Messed with his head a little. Now if you don't mind, I'm done here." She watches him as she moves away, untrusting enough to not turn her back. Clint steps back and loses himself in the shadows, letting her go.

"See you around, then," he yells after her.

He heads out. Best not to hang around the scene of a murder. His plane leaves in the morning, so he takes a quick shower back in his little room and is just collapsing into bed when he notices the blinking icon on his phone.

(RESTRICTED)

P.S. That was an easy shot. You'll have to try harder than that to impress me.

Clint glares at his phone and pulls the pillow over his head.


End file.
